Broken Dreams

 With today's news that both Ryan Suter and Zach Parise are getting bought out of the remaining four years of their respective 13-year deals, it marks an end to an era that had so much hope in the beginning. The dead money will impact the team the most over the next four seasons, with the four following that being less than 900 thousand each. Before I go with what the Wild do from here, something that will be further explored in their part of the needs and mock draft segment, let's go back to the beginning. 

It is the 2012 offseason, and the Minnesota Wild are coming off yet another disappointing season in which their trades with the San Jose Sharks were largely unfulfilling. Devin Setoguchi didn't pan out, Charlie Coyle was still a year away from joining the Wild, another first round pick acquired for Brent Burns would turn into another Wild bust in Zack Phillips. The other San Jose trade was equally as unfulfilling, as underachieving Martin Havlat was swapped for rapidly declining Dany Heatley. Nicklas Backstrom was also experiencing a decline, as well, creating a hole in goal that ultimately wouldn't be filled for a couple more seasons. Getting name free agents has been a challenge for Minnesota to this point, as the lone star player they've had left in free agency a few years prior in Marian Gaborik. 

Let's move to July 4, 2012, a day that would become the Wild's big moment, ultimately for bittersweet reasons. Zach Parise and Ryan Suter were both free agents looking for big money before the lockout would happen a couple months later. The twist? They wanted to sign with a team together, something that would cause teams like Philadelphia and Detroit to balk at the offer, since both were seemingly interested only in Suter, Detroit looking for an eventual replacement for Niklas Lidstrom in a couple years and Philadelphia, as evidenced by their attempted offer sheet for fellow free agent Shea Weber. Minnesota, in their desperate attempt at becoming relevant, and armed with enough cap space for both, swooped in to sign both at identical 7.5 million per year...for 13 years each. They made a splash, but as they would find out, it would come at a cost.

With 15 million tied up between two players for 13 years, if it made it there, plus a no movement clause for each of them, it would be imperative that the Wild surround them with quality depth. The problem there would not be on the blue line, but up front, as the Wild couldn't find a true goal scorer. Sure, Parise was good for 30 goals a season when healthy, but no consistency was found when it came to that goal scorer. Look at the records for most goals in a season for the Wild, and you'll find that Parise, Eric Staal, Jason Zucker, and Jason Pominville all crack the top 10 on that list, but only once each. It should also be noted that each of them only cracked 30 goals once. I did say Parise was good for 30 goals when healthy, which is another problem, as outside of the lockout shortened 2013 season and the shortened 2019-20 season, he missed fewer than 10 games only twice in his time with the Wild. As for Suter, he was closer to living up to the contract, keeping in mind that it was still going to be too much to live up to, as he played nearly every game in his time with the Wild, with the exception of 2017-18, where he missed the last four games plus the playoffs. However, he could not shake the second banana label, as players such as Matt Dumba and Jonas Brodin surpassed him, and both are in their prime years. It also hurt Suter that his numbers declined this season, as Jared Spurgeon helped relegate Suter to fourth best defender, thus making the contract into more of a millstone.

Ultimately, all the Wild were able to do in the Suter-Parise era was reach the second round twice, only to be bounced in short order. Now, how can I describe the era? It started with a sense of hope and some pretty packaging, but once the present was unwrapped, buyer's remorse set in, and now, it's time for the Wild to reset, likely with new deals for both Kevin Fiala and Kirill Kaprizov, who are both RFAs.